


Antarctica Longing

by thecitysmith



Category: Paris Burning (thecitysmith)
Genre: F/M, Gen, join us, praise them, the thing under the ice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 05:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7562881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecitysmith/pseuds/thecitysmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This winter has been long.</p>
<p>It will only get longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Antarctica Longing

This winter has been long.

It will only get longer.

The North Pole was thousands miles made of ice and cold and fury.

It shuddered, moaned, and began to move south.

-

Copenhagen grimaced and pulled his hood further down against the howling winds. Snow caught on his eyelashes and bit into his skin. He had to abandon his car a while back.

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem for a City, let alone a Capital, but he was well out of his bounds. He was treading north, to meet Stockholm at the border so they could both head into Norway. Things there had gotten even grimmer since Oslo had been taken by Atlantis.

And now this winter. It was the last thing they needed, unnatural, even.

A voice spoke from behind.

(join us)

Copenhagen turned around.

“Hello?” He called out. “Is anyone there?”

But there was nothing but snow.

The wind snatched his words away and held them close.

-

The house was quiet. Moscow sat alone.

His phone lay in pieces on the floor.

The City stared at his hands.

The windows rattled. The snow piling up outside, trying to get in. 

-

“She’s not here neither,” Glasgow confirmed, heading out of the house to meet his brother. Edinburgh raked a hand through his red hair.

“Then where is she? Aberdeen hasn’t missed a meeting in centuries.”

“Aye.”

Neither of them mentioned calling the emergency line that dealt with missing Cities. Aberdeen was no Lost City. Atlantis couldn’t have touched their glittering, mad sister. Surely not.

(her children were so calm despite her absence. So cold and smiling-)

“We’ve checked all our houses. Is there anything she liked to do? Where does she go? Where- does she have friends?”

“You know Eddy, the more we find out about her, the less it seems we ever knew her at all.”

They both thought back to that room they’d found, under the floorboards of Aberdeen’s house.

No, they didn’t know about her at all.

-

Amsterdam stood to one side, trying not to let her eyelids droop as the press conference dragged on and on and on. Still, she had to be here. The reporters were asking about Atlantis, about ships being sunk all across the ocean, she had to be here, as a sign of solidarity to the humans.

Never mind half of them were glaring at her.

Her phone buzzed and she glanced down to see

“JOIN US :):)):)”

written across the screen. She quickly turned it off.

They were asking about what Prime Minister planned to do, what the Netherlands planned to do, in the face of this attack. As if they could bomb the sea and it would all turn out alright. Her brothers and sisters were asking questions too, in quiet whispers in hidden corridors, questions about freedom and humans and war and Atlantis, Atlantis, Atlantis. Amsterdam fought a cold chill that crept over her.

Then every phone in the room started to ring.

-

Ottawa turned over, grumbling as she surfaced from sleep. It was freezing cold and she didn’t appreciate being woken up by a shrilling phone at this hour. New York murmured and nuzzled her shoulder, making it even harder to reach out of the covers and pluck the phone up.

“Hello?” She asked, rubbing one eye sleepily. This had better be urgent.

“JOIN US” came a voice, distorted by the crackle of the phone.

“You!” Ottawa sat bolt-upright. “Why don’t you just leave me alone?”

“Me? Me…no, you. But not you, more than you. You and him. He’s there too. Warm. You're warm. Bring him. Bring him and you. Then there will be me. Then there will be us. Join us.”

New York was awake now, holding her as she screamed down the phone.

“How could you know that? How- can you see us? Are you watching us?”

The static spat and tittered at her fear. The line went dead.

-

It was late and Washington DC couldn’t sleep. He sipped at his beer as he flicked through the channels, ending up on politics by sheer force of habit. It was some republican, ranting about how the recent drop in temperatures was proof that global warming didn’t exist. The City rolled his eyes.

His phone chirped. Text received.

“JOIN US :):):)):))))”

He deleted it and flipped the channel again. A documentary about Yellowstone and their impending doom. Despite the lava, apparently, it was the cold ash that would do the damage, blot out the sun, make everything so (cold). Then he thought (cold) then he thought (and wouldn’t that be nice and lovely and _cold_ )

Then he blinked and thought (that’s crazy) because that wasn’t him thinking that.

Another text came.

“::))))))”

Washington DC didn’t delete it.

-

Hong Kong was working. He had been doing so tirelessly for the past sixteen hours. He really didn’t need to sleep and there was no point in doing so when this nasty virus was spreading.

He tapped impatiently at his laptop, diving back into lines and lines of code and text. At some point yesterday a virus had infected all the computers in China, and was now spreading out to all their neighbours.

It ignored all the information, any money or government secrets it came across, to simply turn the screen white, with a single message struck across.

“JOIN US”

Harmless, maybe, but his boss wasn’t happy and so Hong Kong drank his fourth coffee and cracked his fingers.

The trouble was it was brilliant. Even Hong Kong could admit that. The code mutated with every computer it came across, diving past every firewall and anti-virus system, switching to the appropriate language, even the appropriate dialect, with every new system it joined.

Hell, he’d had calls from every embassy. It had taken their computers too, switching into their language too. He’d seen “JOIN US” turn into English on every screen in one embassy, except one turned into French, after the white-faced owner admitted he was actually from Quebec which- how? How could they know that?

Well it looked like he was about to find out. With a triumphant cry, he cracked the code and found the source. He almost looked forward to finding out how the person did this.

Then Hong Kong saw the results, and his smile faded from his face.

The source was his own computer, which stated he had created and implemented the virus not three days ago.

He looked down, and saw, written on his left hand,

“JOIN US”

it was in his handwriting.

-

The cold spread south, where summer should have reigned.

Below the waves, the singing briefly ceased, as if someone had stopped to listen. 

-

Timbuktu didn’t turn around as her sister joined her. There was no point, her ancient eyes saw little these days. (little in this world, anyway)

Abuja was holding something close to her. The elderly City didn’t doubt that it was one of the messages the ice had sent.

“They’re waking up,” Abuja said, too proud to be fearful, but too honest not to tremble.

“Yes,” Timbuktu said simply.

Before her, the ground had been torn apart. It was a message, though it had no words. Just holes in the earth, two black eyes and a tear below them, a mouth that should have been smiling but resembled nothing so much as a gaping maw.

“We will die,” Abuja said.

“Yes.” Timbuktu closed her milky eyes. “At last. At last.”

-

To the east, Tarawa cradled a phone close to his ear, listening intently.

(JOIN US)

-

It was mid-summer, and even on the higher ground of Sucre, the heat should have been immense.

Instead, she woke up to find her breath misting in the cold air.

The City hurried outside, staring at the sky in disbelief. All over the city, people were stopping in the streets and holding their hands upwards.

The first few flakes of snow began to settle in Sucre’s silver hair.

-

“Christchurch?” Wellington roared, “We’re coming in!”

With that, he managed to break down the door, his siblings shoving past in half-frantic panic, looking around for their lost sibling (no, not lost, please not lost). They had run here the moment every plant in Christchurch, the garden city, had died simultaneously.

“Oh god,” Auckland backed away, her hand clasped over her mouth, trying not to be sick.

It was all over the walls, scrawled on the windows, carved into the floor. Written in ink and oil and-

“JOIN US”

Christchurch was gone.

-

JoinusjoinusjoinusjoinuspleasejoinuspleasepleasepleasejoinusjoinusJOINUS

-

To the south, a phone call came.

“Join us,” the voice on the other ended pleaded, and then, in almost a whimper. “…Love us?”

“Alright,” Buenos Aires choked, “Alright, I’m coming.”

-

Under the ice, triumph screamed in white noise.


End file.
